Lily's Postponed Babylonian Vacation
by The Carnivorous Muffin
Summary: It's Halloween night and Lily tries and fails to explain what she got up to over the summer of 1996, then of course, Gilgamesh shows up to explain for her. Side fic to "The Demiurge"


**Author's Note: A warning that this is a side fic of "The Demiurge" and also "The Will of Heaven", if you haven't read that first story you'll be a tad bit confused.**

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"Is anyone else ever stricken with intense déjà vu all the time in this place?" Lily asked, throwing her hands into the air for what had to be the fiftieth time this year alone, "Or is it just me?"

"It's just you," Hermione Granger, Default female prefect for the fifth year running, had absolutely no sympathy whatsoever. Which, in and of itself, was rather reminiscent of years past.

The year was 1996, the month October, the night Halloween and sixteen-year-old Eleanor Lily Potter was once again trapped inside of Hogwarts. She sighed, allowed her head to thunk on the table as she took in her surroundings, which despite the years hardly seemed to have changed at all.

Sure, this time there wasn't a troll in the dungeons or anything but the Default table was still filled with familiar faces (they hadn't been too popular in sortings since 1992), over there at Slytherin Malfoy looked as smarmy as ever and like he was just itching to tell his father something about something, Gryffindor was still overflowing with Weasleys, and Hogwarts basically hadn't changed at all.

Well, she supposed that the Big Bad of this year appeared to be Severus Snape who had taken up the position of Defense Professor and sacrificial lamb to the dark gods of Hogwarts. After five years now, Lily had figured out the pattern to this whole Hogwarts thing. First, Lily would never ever make it to the end of term and she'd be lucky if she managed to stay in the country even for the winter holidays. Second, something terrible and often times fatal would always happen to the Defense professor.

Always.

And Lily was usually involved.

First Quirrell had been possessed by Wizard Lenin's better half and stabbed to death by Lily. Then Lockhart had been possessed by Wizard Trotsky and had his soul sucked out of him in order to grant Wizard Trotsky a body. Lupin had mostly escaped unscathed but had what was basically the wolf version of wizard leprosy. Barty Crouch masquerading as Lupin had met a rather gruesome and righteous end at Lily's hand when she'd found out about the whole set up thing. Then Hermione Granger had gotten Umbridge abducted and raped by centaurs.

Given that track record, Lily on the first day of Defense had offered her condolences to Snape and offered to be gentle. He hadn't taken that particularly well.

Of course, this meant that Snape wasn't teaching Potions as usual but that had been instead passed off to one Professor Horace Slughorn who Wizard Lenin apparently remembered with extreme fondness. And by fondness Lily meant that the man had apparently earned himself a special seat of loathing in Wizard Lenin's cold black heart right next to Albus Dumbledore. Except, while Dumbledore had at least some of Wizard Lenin's grudging respect Slughorn had none.

Having been in Potions class for two months now Lily was starting to see where her former imaginary friend was coming from.

"I don't know why you're having déjà vu," Greengrass said with a small hum of disdain and contempt, "You usually managed to disappear or be kidnapped by this point. Have you even made it to second term once?"

"I've always made it to October!" Lily protested, although she did privately wonder just why she hadn't been thrown out of the school altogether yet. You'd think with skipping that much class, with skipping entire terms, she'd have been at least held back a few times but somehow, she just kept being moved along.

Sure, she was the most magically powerful being to enter Hogwarts in its entire existence, but something about that just seemed wrong.

Wizard Lenin had pointed out though that since Crabbe and Goyle were passing through Hogwarts with ease the bar for graduation was embarrassingly low.

"I just—" Lily cut herself off in irritation, "Either Hogwarts is filled with intrigue, murder, and despair and is terrible for everyone or else it's just so boring I want to die!"

And the intrigue was missing!

Well, sure, Wizard Lenin had broken his buddies out of jail, was now at least publicly acknowledged, and was blowing up Diagon Alley on a regular basis but that wasn't Hogwarts intrigue. Usually by this point there were warnings in blood written on the walls, trolls in dungeons and philosopher's stones, her crazy god father sneaking through the school like some slasher villain, or well anything.

"I'm sorry you find school boring," Hermione sniffed, utterly unimpressed as she flipped through her reading that wasn't due for another three weeks, "No one told you to come back."

"That is untrue and you know it," Lily responded, because everyone wanted Ellie Potter back at school even if they didn't. According to Hermione herself, whenever Lily did take one of her unintentional sabbaticals, half the nation panicked.

"Our captain's right," Luna piped in, looking as eclectic and eccentric as usual, "She can't simply abandon her post for all time."

"I have a sacred duty," Lily agreed, standing as she felt an inspirational speech coming on, "Now, I don't know what that duty is or why I'm always the one who has to do it! But I'll be damned if I don't at least try to do it some of the time! You know, before everything inevitably goes sideways and terrible."

Because as Defense professor Snape was going to try to murder and or torture at least one student and it was probably up to Lily to end up brutally killing him instead. It was tradition.

"Well, if you weren't here then what else would you be doing?" this was Zabini, as bored of Lily's whining and inspirational speeches as he was of quidditch. Default, in the five years of its existence, had a worse quidditch record than the Chudly Cannons.

Lily blinked, there were a lot of answers she could give to that and only some she was willing to. It probably would not go over well if she stated she'd run her drug empire of vampires, nor would crashing in Death Eater central, but on the other hand, "Well, I'd probably go and see Babylon."

"Babylon?" Hermione asked, dark eyebrow raising.

"I—" Lily stopped, considered her words and how she was supposed to put this, then started again, "I met a guy over the summer, in Fuyuki, and he really wanted to go on this epic quest to Babylon with me."

Because that was apparently what one did in Babylon, you went on literally epic road trips involving divine beings, theft of celestial objects, and lots of babes. Gilgamesh had been reminiscing about the good old days with Enkidu even before they'd left Fuyuki for London and, while generally disdainful of the mortal modern world, had been interested enough to see what had become of the hanging gardens and embark on some sort of buddy movie worthy trip with Lily.

Unfortunately, Hogwarts had sort of gotten in the way of those plans.

"You met a guy?!" the whole of Default looked astounded, well other than Rabbit who had been staring into space as usual, and were practically falling out of their seats.

"And?" Lily asked, now a little irritated.

"You," Zabini said, recovering first though not enough to prevent spluttering, "Met a guy."

"And?" Lily repeated, now more than a little irritated.

"You, Eleanor Lily Potter, whatever the hell you are," Zabini said motioning to her in all of her glory, "Met some guy who actually wanted to go on a trip, alone, with you."

"Are you saying I'm not attractive, Zabini?" Lily asked, voice growing dangerously soft with a suppressed irritation and rage that would have stronger men running for the hills. Zabini, always known for his self-preservation, did pale slightly and back off but Hermione was as ballsy as ever and simply snorted.

"I'm saying that any sane man wouldn't step near you, Ellie," Hermione said, motioning towards her, "Not if they know what's good for them."

Now, it was true that Lily had had a devil of a time finding someone for the Yule Ball and it was also true that Cedric Diggory had rejected her in a thoughtlessly embarrassing manner that Lily really didn't like to think about. More, it was true that as far as Lily knew she didn't have any suitors other than Gilgamesh and Wizard Trotsky and as far as the normal mortal man when she had a rather dismal batting average.

However, Lily had decided that just meant she was high quality stuff that was simply too overpowering for the common man and she'd eat them alive anyway!

"Um, captain, you've set the table on fire," Luna said hesitantly, and Lily glanced down the table to see that it was, indeed, on fire.

"Twenty points from Default for arson!"

Lily winced, putting the fire out with a thought, and wondering if the staff table had always sounded this unexcited by the prospect of someone burning down the castle. Somewhere around third year, or maybe second, they'd just stopped giving a shit.

"So, what is this… guy like?" Greengrass asked with an almost green tint to her features and a healthy pause before the word guy. Like she wasn't entirely sure that Gilgamesh wasn't secretly some tentacle monster from the abyss.

Which, sure, he was two-thirds divine (and Lily still wasn't entirely sure what that meant as she'd thought one-half or one-quarter would make more sense) but he looked human enough. He just happened to glow sometimes.

"Well," Lily paused and tried to think of how to whittle Gilgamesh down into a simple paragraph. The silence stretched longer as flashes of memory came to mind, none of them really easily explained, and all of them likely prompting the need for a lot more explanation.

"Well?" Hermione asked and then prompted, "Is he older than you?"

"Oh, yes," Lily said distantly, although she wasn't quite sure how to think about Gilgamesh's age. On the one hand, there were the five thousand years that had passed since his demise, on the other hand there was however old he'd been when he kicked the bucket and Lily didn't know exactly when that was.

Besides, he didn't really look all that old. Older than her, sure, but mostly he had this weird glowing ageless sense about him as if instead of aging like the rest of humanity he just shed his humanity away until only the god remained.

"How much older than you?" Hermione's eyes narrowed, apparently now wary enough by Lily's lack of response to really start digging for information.

"Roughly five thousand years," Lily said, although if she was really thinking about it then Lily had always had this nagging suspicion that she'd existed in some capacity or another before 1981 but it was just, well, hard to wrap her head around.

This, judging by the amount of staring she was getting, was apparently the wrong answer.

Once again, Zabini was the first capable of speech after that, "So, you're dating Flamel's great grandfather."

"No," Lily said shortly, not willing to waste her breath and explain that for a man who was thousands of years old Gilgamesh had not only aged well but appeared to defy age altogether, "And besides, I'm not sure I'd call it dating."

They'd sort of skipped that whole dating bit, sure, there'd been one night of karaoke but that had quickly devolved into something a little further in than dating. Then, after that, as far as Gilgamesh seemed to be concerned the dating was done and they were wed in holy matrimony. Now, Lily herself wasn't entirely sure about that, there'd been no priest, no rings, no "I do" but she knew better than to try and argue with Gilgamesh.

"What would you call it then?"

Holy matrimony, while an honest response, felt wrong.

Except she didn't really have any other response to give. Thankfully, while she was sitting there feeling rather stupid, Gilgamesh decided to make his grand entrance. There he was, the walls of Hogwarts caving in and bowing before his golden glory, and every student turning towards his blinding brilliance.

"Oh sweet Jesus," Lily said to herself as, after turning to stare at him, everyone in the room turned to stare at her. Because when shit like this happened it was usually, somehow, Lily's fault.

Which, she would have protested vehemently, except this one kind of was her fault.

Oh, she could feel the house point loss coming on now. It was a good thing Default had stopped caring about house points years ago.

Dumbledore stood in all of his fearsome glory, which under normal circumstances was quite intimidating, but when facing Gilgamesh king of kings and hero of the ages paled somewhat, "Sir, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to—"

Gilgamesh stepped past him, although step wasn't really the right word, he was doing that "I'm better than the maggots that crawl on the dirt so I'm just sort of going to float two inches above it because I can do that" thing that he did. Which, in a room filled with wizards who in general did not really do the floating thing, was somehow more intimidating than the fact that he was still glowing like a light bulb.

Lily did not cover her face with her hands, that was beneath her, but instead she sat calmly with all the poise of a king as Gilgamesh walked with confidence straight towards her.

"Potter!" that was probably Malfoy, it sounded a bit like Malfoy, "Is this your doing?!"

Oh yes, Malfoy, run and tell daddy why don't you? Although Malfoy had been threatening that less and less ever since Wizard Lenin had taken over his house. Somehow tattling to daddy didn't have the same impact when he now knew that his dark lord and Eleanor Lily Potter were in cahoots.

Finally Gilgamesh reached the table, inspecting her Default comrades like the maggot vermin filth he was convinced they were, when his eyes met hers there was a sort of exasperated chiding look to them as if he couldn't believe he was going to have to say what he was about to say, "Lily, you abandoned me for this pile of garbage?"

There were many things Lily could say to that, she could protest that while Hogwarts sucked it wasn't quite garbage, she could point out that she could hardly argue with the entire magical United Kingdom, but instead she just said blandly, "Yes."

He sighed, sat at the table, cast a suspicious glance towards the pumpkin juice. He picked it up, sloshing the glass this way and that, and as he did so his expression grew more and more disgusted, "Lily, love, the wine appears to have somehow rotted and is forming clumps."

"That would be pumpkin juice," Lily said, dutifully ignoring the quiet horror that everyone in the school was now staring at her with, "Alcohol is frowned upon in learning establishments."

Gilgamesh, as usual, did not quite comprehend alcohol being frowned upon in any establishment.

"Miss Potter," Dumbledore, from the staff table, was looking down at her with blue eyes that were not sparkling with merriment and cheer of the Halloween feast. Of course, ever since he'd returned from the summer with a blackened hand he hadn't really been in any kind of festive mood.

"Yes?" Lily asked, as if this were any other night and no, a glowing demigod hadn't just laid waste to the walls of Hogwarts and was now sitting across from Lily and venting about wine.

"Would you please escort your guest out of the castle?" Dumbledore asked, ever so politely, "And remind him that Hogwarts is, I'm afraid, for students only."

That probably was the cleanest way of resolving this situation. Now, the tricky thing would be managing to somehow get back into Hogwarts without Gilgamesh tagging along. Of course, she supposed this could always be her bailing point, October was close enough to the end of the first term…

"We should probably go," Lily said to Gilgamesh with a sigh, "There isn't any karaoke in Hogsmeade but there is alcohol."

Of course, Gilgamesh hated wizard booze, but that was another point entirely. Either way, Lily stood, and slowly began the walk of shame through the Great Hall with everyone from Malfoy to Weasley staring at the golden pair.

"Honestly though," Lily said with a sigh as she and Gilgamesh exited the great hall, "This is still better than Potions."

He looked entirely too pleased with himself by that comment, because of course Gilgamesh was vastly superior to Lily taking Potions.

Then, as a thought struck her, she looked at Gilgamesh and noted, "Hey, since you're here, how do you feel about attending this thing called a slug club with me? Slughorn keeps inviting me, you know on account of me being Jesus and all, and apparently showing up without a plus one simply isn't done."

After all, if Gilgamesh was going to crash Hogwarts then Lily should get something useful out of it.

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 **Author's Note: Prompted by AlleyKat2014 who requested a story featuring Gilgamesh crashing Hogwarts that one time in October that was briefly mentioned by Lily in "The Will of Heaven". He'd be a great hit at them slug clubs though.**

 **Thanks for reading, reviews are much appreciated.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Fate/Zero**


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